


Time Well Spent

by littleoptimistme



Category: Beetlejuice - All Media Types, Beetlejuice - Perfect/Brown & King
Genre: Beetlejuice - Freeform, F/M, Gen, beetlejuice is the baby brother to the other demons, beetlejuice is wanted for her murder, beetlejuice isn't as old as he says, beetlejuice's backstory, his past sucks alot, lydia and beetlejuice are friends, lydia is kind, post killing juno, they're trying to understand why he acts like he does, you probably wouldn't be so great either if you were born in hell not so long ago
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-08-24
Updated: 2019-08-27
Packaged: 2020-09-26 00:07:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,633
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20380387
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/littleoptimistme/pseuds/littleoptimistme
Summary: When he said he was a millennium-year-old demon, it sounded more impressive to humans than it really honestly should. Because time was strange in Hell and it had been not that long since he… well, started? Like, it had been longish. But longish like how you go to college for a longish time, not longish like hundreds and thousands of lifetimes worth of time. But whatever! It wasn't a big deal and no one was ever going to need to know.





	1. Chapter 1

If he was honest, Beetlejuice didn’t really understand time. In the Netherworld, time didn’t exist exactly, and he knew from the experiences of other dead people that ‘time’ moved much faster when you were dead. A week as a living person approximated, eh, five minutes? Ish? It wasn’t consistent. It stretched and contracted seemingly of its own design. There didn’t seem to be a set standard, or if there was, no one bothered to tell him what it was, and Beetlejuice hadn’t bothered to care.

So when he said he was a millenniumish-year-old demon, it sounded more impressive to humans than it really honestly should. Because it had been not that long since he… well, started? Like, it had been _ longish _. But longish like how you go to college for a longish time, not longish like hundreds and thousands of lifetimes worth of time. Or something. He was guessing. Eh.

This wasn’t something he discussed because, duh, it was lame as hell (and hell was super lame. He remembered.) and he got enough flack from the hundred-thousand or more year old beings.

He landed back at the Deetz a few months after his dramatic exit. He hadn’t really searched for his father because he knew for a fact that he didn’t have one. Demons didn’t work that way. It made a good exit line, though. Instead, he’d wandered around, chilled out at the edge of the universe and accidentally took a wrong turn into Hell. It ended up being a good thing because the trip reminded himself just why he hated demons. They were assholes, obviously. But worse, they were _ social _ about it.

“I told her, if I had hair like yours I wouldn’t let anyone tell me what to do-”

“She looks like a fucking beehive, Sharron.”

Two demons leaned over the watercooler in a less-than-OSHA-standard office place. It was beige with nice cubicles, fluorescent lighting, a broken vending machine, and a bald guy in the corner who probably worked there but no one knew who the heck he was. Soot covered the carpet and Gary broke the vacuum 200 years ago so now the blood from the daily random torture at 2:15 PM had to dry on the shag.

Beetlejuice showed his teeth, which the narrator supposes was meant to be a smile.“Don’t forget, the bathroom smells like grape vape.”

Oh yeah, the bathroom smelled like a grape vape. There was only one. Where did they even get that stuff down here?

Welcome to Hell.

The whispers started now as Beetlejuice walked down the eternal length of the room. He may have been on the shorter side, but people tended to notice _ Juno’s _ kid. Especially Juno’s _ banished _ kid.“… Oh my satan, is that _ Beetleboy? _” said a distance, wailing voice. 

And then another: “What the bloody butthole is he doing here?" Word got around that Juno was _ really _ dead, but people hadn’t quite put two and two together. Murder was encouraged so he wasn’t exactly in trouble yet.

They’d probably feed him to the worms for killing their be-hated superintendent… He only had a few minutes before the news that it was _ he _ who killed a demon, then he’d be toast. His chest tightened in the sort of uncomfortable way it did lately, and he cleared his throat to push it down. Ever since the… (no, that was merely coincidental).

Beetlejuice didn’t reply to anyone, instead opting to walk faster.

A Loud Voice: “Ho, ho!! iS THAT BABY JUICEY?”

“_ Shitshitshitshit _…” He ducked around a filing cabinet, but it was too late.

A green cloud so putrid Beetlejuice smelled it over all the other awful smells in the underworld, eased out of a cubical. Beetlejuice coughed. “It smells like pizza air from the inside of a dirty microwave and like, pee or whatever.”

Yeah. It did. If Beetlejuice would letting the narrator narrate, they would have gotten around to that bit of information eventually. 

“Tsk, not with all that passive voice, babes.” How he could identify passive voice when the narrator does not always understand it is a mystery.

A very tall demon in a far too small grey suit, his head knocking against the grease-stained fluorescents on the ceiling, ducked out. “EHHHH, you never got around to me about that minigolf game, Ol’ Sport!”

That literally had to have been centuries ago, before he was banished and cursed originally.

As it was, Beetlejuice couldn't get around Bart to continue down the hallway. The tall demon was too wide. “Ah. Your bellybutton is still as weird as it was before.” Beetlejuice craned his neck to look up at Bart’s thumb-like head. “Full offense, I’d rather eat my own liver than play minigolf with you, Bart.”

Bart let loose a deep, vibrating laugh and Beetlejuice tried on something like a grimace at his words. “AW, YOU ARE ALWAYS SO FUNNY, JUICEY.”

He could feel that unfamiliar tightening again, and Beetlejuice fiddled with the edges of his jacket. “I told you guys not to call me that...”

Gods, this was humiliating. And he knew,_ he knew _, his hair would start betraying his feelings on the subject any minute now and that would just make it worse.

A giggle behind him, four demons, more effeminate, had gathered behind him. He spun around on his heels. “Honey,” said a yellow-skinned woman with no clothes on whatsoever. “Your mama got deaded.”

Beetlejuice nodded. “Pretty much.” He pointed at the yellow woman. “Touch? Boobs?”

“No.”

“Righty. And yeppers. The witch is dead. Wa, wa.”

“She was a bitch. Hot bitch, but a bitch.”

Beetlejuice stared at her.

He didn’t know how to get out of this conversation. Instead, he shook his head and side-eyed no one in particular. “They say hell is other people, and I don't know if this is what they meant, but if it is, they’re right.”

The women gave him odd looks. “Why does he always do that,” one whispered.

“Who are you talking too?”

“Honey pot.” He snorted at the yellow woman. “You’re awfully judgemental for a naked lemon.”

That was it. End of the conversation, Beetlejuice pushed past Bart and, eyes down, he darted down the hallway, hands shoved deep in his pockets. The Office twisted and turned back on itself repeatedly, but if he kept thinking hard enough about the Netherworld, he could make it up to that level, probably.

At least there, the dead were human. He liked them more. He could scare those guys.

Or maybe he could go back… (no, no, the Deetz wouldn’t want him. Duh.) Then again, they were kinda even now right? “I tried to kill you, you totally murdered me,” he muttered to his chest. “S’all cool beans.”

“Feelin’ nervous, bug boy?” someone shouted from a cubical as he ducked past.

“Hey.” Beetlejuice stopped and smiled, leaning over the wall. “Jerry. Jerry, look at me. Right in the eyes.”

Jerry raised an eyebrow.

“Fuck you, Jerry.”

“Whatev, mood ring.”’ But Jerry was already fading into the background.

Beetlejuice cursed under his breath and ran a hand through his hair irritably. At the door, a faded reflection revealed his hair tips were, in fact, pink, as he expected. “Yeah,” Beetlejuice said, “but we don’t have to mention it, you kinky bastard.”

Beetlejuice misjudged the narrator’s… inclinations, and should please shut his mouth.

Beetlejuice shouldered his way out of the office just as he heard an alarm begin to blare. In the reflection, the pink instantly bloomed dark blue. He could still hear the alarm echoing as he raced toward the dusty darkness of the Netherworld. 

“**BEETLEJUICE SHALL REPORT FOR FINAL DESTRUCTION FOR CRIMES SUCH AS DEMONIC MURDER AS WELL AS IGNORING BANISHMENT OR SOMETHING OR OTHER” **whined a bored technician through the speakers. 

“Bit harsh...”

The spiraling abyss of the Netherworld was occasionally spotted with a forlorn ghost. They’d lock eyes with him.

“Hey, man, you’re supposed to get destroyed.”

“I’m getting around to it. Scat.”

He couldn’t stay here either. They’d find him.

Earth it was.

He slowed and dug in his pocket. “Chalk… chalk… I’ve got to have fucking… CHALK! AH!” An old woman’s soul startled away into the shadows at his outburst. “Oh, you think that was scary?” He wiggled his fingers at the darkness after the ghost and watched as illusions of terror took over her, and she collapsed to her knees. He grinned. “That was mean, cause I’m mean. Thank ya, thank ya, here all week. Or, until the end of this scene.”

Chalk in hand, he drew a door in the darkness.

Behind him, voices got louder. The floor vibrated with massive footsteps.

“YOU SHOULD HAVE GOLFED WITH ME, JUICY!”

He grunted, hand on the knob. “_ fuck off, Bart… _”

“NOW WE’VE GOT TO DISEMBOWEL YOU.”

“SOUNDS SEXY!” he shouted. He opened the door, and as he fled, laughter echoing through the great cavern of the Netherworld, the demons chasing him rolled their eyes. Typical Beetlejuice. The door slammed shut. You couldn’t really blame the kid, could you, for getting in trouble? He was Juno’s after all, no matter how much she hated him.

They stomped up, the whole crowd of them, to the shut door, and Bart knelt down in front of it.

In his sausage-like fingers, he scooped up a small white item.

The various demons leaned in to look at it.

“Well,” Jerry said. “He ain’t comin’ back now. Not without chalk…”

They shook their heads. “What a dumbass…”

The narrator _ is _inclined to agree with that observation.

* * *

Inside a pointy, dark, generally uninviting house on top of a hill, warm yellow light crept from the windows and the distant sound of music could be heard. The neighbors never knew what to think of this strange family, but they were generally pegged as unusual and probably witchy.“Someone should call the city about the unkempt yard. Disgraceful.” Shadows flickered as people crossed in front of the kitchen window. Such behavior lasted for twenty minutes or so, and as the sun sank under the thick blanket of the earth and the moon rose to cast her eerie, wine-blue glow, those lights clicked off, one by one, until the house stood dark and grim. All except for a single lamp in the upstairs window, where Lydia Deetz cast her silhouette.

Lydia curled her legs up beneath her and continued reading an antique copy of Frankenstein. Delia (the stepmother, if you have difficulty recalling) gave her the book for her sixteenth birthday, which utterly shocked Lydia. She’d been expecting bath salts or crystals or a home meditation DVD. Something told her Delia might have had help on the book choice, Adam was a rather in-depth classics reader lately, but the thought touched her. She was _ trying. _ Lydia didn’t know what to do with that.

Either way, Frankenstein was wonderful. Just the type of creepy she found comforting.

_ I started from my sleep with horror; a cold dew covered my forehead, my teeth chattered, and every limb became convulsed; when, by the dim and yellow light of the moon, as it forced its way through the window shutters, I beheld the wretch–the miserable monster whom I had created. _

Lydia shivered, grinning.

_ He held up the curtain of the bed; and his eyes, if eyes they may be called, were fixed on me. His jaws opened, and he muttered some inarticulate- _

“Heya, babes,”

Lydia shrieked, the book dropped to the floor with a _ clunk _.

Through the window, a gaunt face Lydia thought she might never see again grinned at her. He cradled his face in his hands, elbows against the window still and ankles crossed behind him as if it was the simplest thing in the world to float twenty-feet in the air. Which, she supposed for him, it was.

Lydia scrambled out of the armchair and threw open the panes. He floated back.

“Beetlejuice!”

“That’s the name, please wear it out.”

For a moment, she just stared at him, stunned. She should have expected he’d return. What she ought to do is politely bid him good evening and request he haunted somewhere, _ anywhere _, but here. But as she stared, something shifted in that naughty grin of his and she caught the slightest hint of resignation. He expected her to turn him away.

That was all it took, really.

“Oh, you big dummy. Get in here before Daddy sees you.”

Shocked, he dropped a few feet, catching himself on the sill. “Wait, really?”

“Quick,” she drawled. “Before I change my mind.”

And in he came. She shut the window behind him and watched silently as he zipped around her bedroom. It was dark, dreary and victorian except for a square vase of yellow lilies on the bedside table Delia snuck in a few days ago. The woman’s persistence was inexhaustible.

Beetlejuice slowly drifted to the floor. He spun around slowly. “I don’t think I ever saw this room, Lyds.”

“My bedroom. You were too busy trying to kill us to get the house tour, I guess.”

He grunted and said nothing, instead opting to pick at the buttons at the edges of his jacket. He looked exactly as he had all those months earlier, striped suit, his hair a mossy mess, although as she looked that over, she noted the tinges of pink at the roots. He carried with him the smell of gasoline and dirt, unfortunately. He cleared his throat.

“Well, you guys look like you've been doing pretty good. How’s Adam, still a snack?”

“He’s picked up sewing with Barbra.”

“Course they did.” He poked the lily, and it faded a more suitable black hue. “I’ve been fine, thanks for asking. Currently banished again because of the whole killed-my-mom thing and they want to disembowel me while they talk about knitting and then feed me to sandworms, so I was like, eh, screw you guys, I’m gonna wander the earth again and I happened to be in the area and I thought to myself, huh I wonder what Lyds up to lately. Not that it matters or anything, just, you know” He met her eyes for half a second before looking away. “… bore...d...?”

Lydia crossed her arms. It was funny, talking to Beetlejuice. He didn’t ever say quite what he meant. But she understood the questions beneath the ramble. “You can’t stay here. Daddy would never allow it.”

Beetlejuice rolled his eyes and collapsed dramatically into the chair she was sitting in before. “Well, hot damn, since when do you do whatever your daddy tells you, Babes?”

“Don’t try to manipulate me. I’m not stupid.”

“I didn’t say you were!” He stood, paced restlessly. “Just, look, look, Lyds, we made a great team last time, yeah? And! Oh, remember! I didn’t let Mom kill you! That was like a _ weirdly _good thing of me to do, you know that. I’ve completely changed! New leaf. No, no, new tree entirely! I got to be alive, for like, a second.”

Lydia kept her arms crossed. “Uh-huh.”

He rubbed the back of his neck. “... please?”

There wasn’t anything she could do if he decided to stay. She couldn’t _ make _ him leave. So why was he asking permission?

It wasn’t really about the house, of course, but rather the people inside it, but neither character understood at that moment because they were muddled in the midst of it, as people generally are. Instead, Lydia sighed and dropped her arms. “They are going to kill me…”

Beetlejuice’s hair shot bright green. “Aw, Lyds. You are _ not _ going to regret this. I will make it worth your while, trust me!”

And just like that, Beetlejuice was back in their lives.

The first few weeks were harrowing, to put it lightly.

“Ground Rules.”

“Aw-”

“Beetlejuice, on the ground please.”

Barbra, somehow, was the only one besides Lydia who wasn’t scared mute by the demon. She planted her hands on her hips and waited until he sat roughly in one of the kitchen chairs. Lydia’s father, Delia, and Adam all stood at the edges of the room, stiff, eyes frozen on Beetlejuice.

Charles had a hand very tightly on Lydia’s shoulder. She currently tolerated it, since it made her father feel better. Beetlejuice wouldn’t hurt her, she was fairly certain. In fact, the more she interacted with him, the more she was sure that he was not the devilish monster he claimed to be. If anything, Beetlejuice was… ignorant. Like Frankenstein's monster. Where the hell had he spent his thousand years to not know these things yet? It was difficult to convince the other members of the household that this was true, however.

Barbra wasn’t taking any chances. She sat down purposefully at the table. “One: No killing. Ever. No matter what anyone does. Even if we offend you.”

Beetlejuice blinked. “Uh, sorry, _ what? _”

“If you threaten to hurt any of us, you are unwelcome.”

Beetlejuice glanced at Lydia as if to say, ‘for real, are you down for this?’. She nodded. There it was again, further proof. He didn’t _ get it. _ Or, he hadn’t. When you were an immortal being that was surely tortured daily, death and other maiming activities just didn’t matter that much. It was rude, but not _ awful. _

His eyes narrowed and then he looked back at Barbra. “Honestly, what do you think I am, a demon?” He grinned.

“We’re serious, Mr. uh, Juice. You try to hurt anyone or make any inappropriate advances, and you will _ not _ be welcome back in this house.” Charles’s hand tightened on Lydia again, and he muttered under his breath, “hardly welcome as it is…”

“Fine. Duh. Obviously. There wouldn’t be any point in killing the literal only people on earth that can see me.”

That was a good point, and she could see this logic trickling across everyone else’s minds.

There was a long silence.

Beetlejuice cocked his head at Barbra and drummed his fingers on the table. “Anything else, honey? Cause I’ve got a dead orgy to host at 6:15 and its gonna be a real banger.”

“Ew,” Barbra signed. “I mean…” She looked around at the rest of them. “That’s about it, to be honest. Anything…?”

They all shrugged.

And Beetlejuice smiled. Not a dirty, mischevious smile, but one of relief. He looked up. “And… end scene.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ahh thanks for reading guys （＾ν＾）

The first words Beetlejuice remembered hearing came out of the cigarette raw throat of his mother.

“Aw, shite. Too much pepper.  _ Disgusting _ . A Runt.”

He opened his eyes.

It was dark, the woman in front of him was as crooked as a snake. She looked down at him over her glasses, lips curled back. In her hand, she held a piece of red chalk, and around Beetlejuice were various unfamiliar symbols drawn in a circle on very dark ground along with a variety of empty labeled bottles. He sat in a wooden chair and looked down at the sparks of light far beneath him.  _ Stars, _ he thought.

“What in satan's sphere are you supposed to be?”

Beetlejuice jumped in surprise. He stared at her. “Uhhh,” He shut his mouth, startled. He could make sounds too, apparently. Everything was moving far too quickly, the information he gained from nowhere pouring into his mind without any particular order. He scratched his head. He knew his name suddenly.

“Beetle- beetle, er,”

“Great. Defective on the inside  _ and _ outside. Say your name, kid.”

He couldn’t. He opened his mouth. “Beetlejizz, Jazzbug, Bugbeverage-  _ shit, what the hell-  _ what’s going on?”

The woman (his mother, the thoughts in his head supplied) continued to look at him as if he gave her indigestion. With a sign, she tottered out of the circle and toward the edge of the darkroom. There were shelves on the wall, he noticed now, filled with various old books. She picked one out and opened it, licking a pointy finger as she turned the pages quickly.

“Perhaps too much coriander… Try to say your name again, idiot.”

“Buttass.” He cleared his throat. “That’s, uh, that’s  _ not  _ my name.”

“I know your name.” She snapped. “Don’t talk out of turn.” She tapped one of the pages. “Seems like you have a bitty curse. Your fault.”

Beetlejuice frowned. “How is it my fault! I just started existing!”

“No! Back! Talk!” She flicked her hand and the chair beneath him disappeared. He fell onto the glass with a thud, the breath nearly knocked out of him. He scrambled back on his butt.

“Guess I’ll have to start over.” She picked something off the table. A sharp, shiny thing.

_ Knife, _ said his mind.

“Now go,” she gestured with it toward a door at the edge of the room. It was low and metal, and he did  _ not _ want to go in there.

“Aw, mom, please.”

“No. Get in the hole, worm.”

He swallowed thickly and realized suddenly that he  _ liked _ ‘being’, whatever this was. He liked it. And he didn’t want it to stop and the mean lady was going to make it stop. He scrambled to his feet and brushed down what he realized was a striped suit. “Eat my ass, lady!”

“I am your  _ MOTHER! _ ”

He tried to dart around her, but quicker than his eyes could see, she grabbed him by the lapels of the jacket and shoved the knife into his gut. He gasped as a white-hot pain, worse than anything he had ever felt (literally) bloomed from his stomach. Dark green blood stained the front of his suit. “Silver steel cuts demons, ya dumbo. Not that you would know that.” She twisted it and he fell to his knees, choking while she cackled.

“Now get in there.” She pulled him up with unnatural strength, and he stumbled the best he could to the door. He was, he was, fuck, he was  _ scared. _

_ _ “Please, please, please don’t-”

“Don’t whine, Beetlejuice.”

With that, she opened the metal door and tossed him like a bag of trash into a black abyss.

Beetlejuice…

* * *

“I’m back from school, Beetlejuice! Beetlejuice?... Beetleju-” Lydia cut herself off, suddenly remembering who exactly she was calling. Where was he?

She leaned around the banister and called up the stairs. “Beej?! I’m home!” Dad and Delia were still at work. Barbra and Adam inhabited the attic. They’d be down in a minute, she guessed.

A tuft of hair poked around the corner at the top of the stairs. He wrinkled his nose. “You were so close. Like literally-”

“No.”

“I’m incredibly bored, babes.”

“That wasn’t funny.”

“I didn’t make you do anything.”

True. Beetlejuice was reset, of sorts, after she killed him. As far as she could tell, only the people in this house could see him. He was invisible to every other living person. She was sure he’d  _ love _ to scare the living wits out of people again. But everyone had agreed it was better if the circle of people Beetlejuice could interact with stayed in this house. That way, if he did go “batshit crazy” (as Delia supplied) the only people he could hurt were… well, them.

It sounded not great when you thought about it that way but those were the guidelines if he wanted to live here.

Lydia walked up the stairs and opened the door to her bedroom.

She dropped the backpack.

“ _ Beetlejuice! _ ”

“What?”

He popped up behind her.

“I told you not to go into my room when I’m not here!”

He blinked at her, carefully innocent. “I don’t know what you are suggesting.”

“I’m suggesting you trashed my bedroom!”

Beetlejuice glanced into the room. It was, indeed, trashed. He had spent the better part of the morning while Lydia was at school going through her stuff in a bored, aimless way. “I think  _ artfully reconstructed _ is a better term.”

Lydia huffed and kicked a collection of stuffed animals (which formerly hid in her closet because they did not fit her aesthetic) to make a path to her bed. She pursed her lips. “You can’t just- It’s  _ rude _ , Beetlejuice! It’s  _ my stuff. _ ” She started grabbing the animals until there was a large pile in her arms. Beneath the old toys were various old schoolwork boxes, photos, drawings she did in elementary and-

She stilled, eyes on the floor.

Beetlejuice was still talking. “Who gives a shit about stuff anyway? It's all dirt eventually. The cute animals, the bed, this house, you, all earth stuff… Lydia?”

She clenched her jaw and turned away from him. Her hands shook. Dumping the animals on the bed, she went back to the photos on the floor and started to gather them up.

She could feel him hovering, nervous. “Uh, Lyds? Lydia, what’s wrong? Say something.”

What?  _ What?  _ For real? Could he really be so stupid?

_ _ She could feel the familiar pressure of tears, a hot and heavy pressure in her throat, to her humiliation. She bit her lip and didn’t look at him. It wouldn’t have mattered if he hadn’t touched  _ these _ photos. “These aren’t for you,” she managed.

Beetlejuice knelt next to her. He tried to pick up one of the dozen or so photos on the floor. “I don’t understand.”

Suddenly she was furious. She snatched the photo out of his hand. “Get  _ out! _ ”

“Lydia-”

“I SAID GET OUT.”   
He swallowed. His hair shot black.

And he disappeared in a puff of smoke.

~

Barbra was making dinner when Beetlejuice appeared in the kitchen.

He was breathing hard, hands shaking, and Barbra stared at him in shock. “Is something wrong? What’s going on?”

“I’m leaving.” He spat.

With that, he rushed out of the kitchen.

“What?”   
Barbra ran after him. He was already pulling his jacket on at the door. “Beetlejuice, wait. What are you talking about?”

He wouldn’t look at her. “She wants me to leave, so I’m leaving. Adios. Chiao.”

Barbara stuttered, her mind racing. This is what he did. He didn’t understand. Her mind turned back to the observations Lydia had made known to her- observations Barbra agreed with. Something was off about Beetlejuice’s behavior. And not in the obvious ways. He was nasty and rude, but there was something  _ weird  _ going on that they were pretty sure neither of them understood exactly.

Beetlejuice said he’d spend hundreds of years with humans. Yet, he didn’t seem to understand basic things like, that the fridge kept food cold, or that dogs were pets, or that hyperbole was even a thing, etc.. He just… didn’t know.

Barbra steeled herself. She didn’t  _ want _ to touch him. She didn’t particularly like interacting with him. However, to his merit, he had not been anything but vaguely annoying on the scale of evil since he’d returned here.

She turned him gently by the shoulder. “Slow down,” she said. “I’m sure she didn’t mean forever. What happened?”

Beetlejuice looked down at her hand and back up at her, obviously confused. But he didn’t leave. He opened his mouth to respond but was interrupted by a quiet voice from up the stairs.

“He went through mom’s photos.” Lydia sniffed, holding said-photos in her hands. “I have them in a sort of… its dumb. I shouldn’t have gotten so mad.”

Beetlejuice’s eyes widened. “...oh. And that’s… I shouldn’t-?”

“Generally, you don't go through people’s shrines to their dead mom,” Barbara said, again, calmly.

Beetlejuice nodded, apparently digesting this. “Right.” A pause. “I’ll just… go then.”

Lydia snorted and descended the stairs. She looked at him with a peculiar mix of sadness and confusion. “Beetlejuice, can I ask you a question and you promise to tell the truth?”

“If I do, does that mean I can stay?”

Barbara  and Lydia exchanged looks. “...yes?” Lydia said carefully.

Slowly, green began to creep back into his hair. “Shoot away, babes, I’m all ears!”

Then she asked the question that had been bothering them both for weeks. “Beetlejuice, how old are you… really?”

**Author's Note:**

> Please leave a comment if you enjoyed!! :))


End file.
